Both Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors and Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes have heard this afternoon that the Pirates are working on an extension with Jose Tabata and it sounds like the two sides are awfully close. There’s no word on money yet, but Rojas says the deal would be for six years, which would buy out Tabata’s first year of free agency. Tabata also parted with his agent today, but I don’t know that that means much of anything.
I think Tabata’s awfully tough to get a read on at this point in his career. I don’t think that the power power that scouts used to see in him is coming anymore, but I do think that there’s a decent chance he’ll make an awfully good leadoff hitter, especially if his improved plate patience in 2011 is a trend that continues into the future. The problem, of course, is that a lot of his value as a leadoff hitter is tied up in his batting average and his batting average is tied to his speed and Tabata’s a pretty stocky guy that could lose that speed as he gets older. If he loses speed and doesn’t develop power, well, it might be hard to find a role for him when he gets into his later 20s.
That said, it’s likely that he won’t be that expensive to lock up. Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLBTR guesses that the deal will probably be in the $23-25 million range, which isn’t that much at all over six years. The Pirates have a LOT of cost uncertainty in the coming years because right now a huge chunk of their roster is comprised of 0-2 guys who haven’t even hit arbitration yet. A deal for Tabata means they know exactly how much money they have tied up in him for the next six years, which by extenstion also means they’ll know exactly what they have to pay the players that don’t accept deals through their arbitration years. That’s definitely worth something to a team in the Pirates’ position.
UPDATE: Both Tim Dierkes and Dejan Kovacevic indicate that this looks like a six-year deal plus three option years. The financials on this one are certainly going to be interesting.
UPDATE #2: It looks like it’s $15 million for the first six years (which, holy cow, that’s cheap), and with the three options it could escalate to $37.5 million. That’s really, really, hard to argue with from the Pirates’ perspective.
